Through the Desert

“When you sleep in a house your thoughts are as high as the ceiling, when you sleep outside they are as high as the stars.”
–Bedouin Proverb

As a Bedouin Sheikh of your Goum, your caravan of tribesmen, you place great honor in living and traveling across the shifting sands. Yet the desert life calls for Hamasa, courage or bravery. The vast, arid expanses of the Sinai are as treacherous as they are mysterious, incapable of supporting life for an extended period of time.

The desert affords you no mercy, and you must migrate from one meagerly fertile area to another. Across the vast silence and brooding solitude, you know you are not alone. Other tribes are vying for control of the limited water holes and oases. You will do what you must to gain control. As your people say, “at the narrow passage, there is no brother and no friend.”

In Through the Desert, two to five Bedouin leaders direct their nomadic tribe over the sun-baked sands, racing to gain the most important treasure the desert offers: water. Playable in under an hour, this game involves each player establishing caravans, claiming oases, and gaining points.

Ascend your Camel

To become the most successful lord of the desert, you must end the game with the most points. Strategy is essential immediately; the careful placement of your caravan leaders is especially vital to your success in the game, while continuing to place your camels thoughtfully to develop your caravan each round is also significant.

Sheikhs gain points through claiming water hole markers, linking their caravans to oases, enclosing areas of the desert, and having the largest caravan of a particular color. While oases can be scored upon by all players, and by the same player in different ways, water hole markers only benefit the first player there.

Making your continuous chain of camels of the same color is not as easy as it sounds. A camel must be adjacent to a camel of the same color belonging to that player, but cannot be placed next to another camel of the same color that belongs to another player’s caravan. While enclosing an area of the desert can potentially offer the most points, it is also the most difficult to do.

With several ways to gain the most points and win, how will you proceed? Should you try to build the longest caravan? Or should you dominate the desert's oases? Don't forget to observe the movements of your opponents' caravans, or you may find your tribe cut off from valuable resources.

Suitable for the whole family, Through the Desert is playable by ages 10 and up. Whether you play it at home with your family or with friends, Through the Desert offers flexibility in game play as well as in difficulty; board space can be adjusted depending on the number of players, or the amount of caravan leaders can be reduced.

The desert may be an unforgiving environment, but it is your home. Ascend your camel and feel his long, loping strides beneath you as you begin your journey Through the Desert.